His watch read 4:32 pm. Though, in actuality, the time was around 6:00
pm. He sat at an empty bar, staring at what little remained of his drink. The sun came through at an angle that made his beer glisten, making it seem as if it were a magical elixir with healing
powers instead of what it really was - a method of smothering his sorrows. Close enough to healing he supposed. He looked up and around the empty bar. It wasn't the nicest place, but it had OK beer
and it felt homey. "Bartend? Another round over here please." He was answered with silence. "Oh, right.." He mumbled. Nobody could answer, because no one was there. The entire population of Earth
had vanished, so it seemed. Well at least the city. Hard to say. Despite the absence of human life he pictured the bartender approaching and telling him he'd had enough, and he should take a taxi
home and are you ok man? He chuckled and polished off his beer. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be consuming alcohol, being just six months short of the legal age of twenty-one. But there wasn't
anyone really here to stop him. At some point in his drunken state he had pulled out his ID as a joke and set it on the counter, in case anyone wanted to check. The name read as 'Matthew Deckard.'
Matt opened his wallet and put his ID in. He checked the large pouch and not surprisingly it was empty. Well, shit. After forty-five seconds of concentration an idea finally did come. He ripped off
a sheet of paper from a notepad someone had left and found a pen nearby. He wrote: 'Put no my tab -thakns, Mattt' (He spent a solid ten seconds trying to remember if my is spelled with an I or a
Y.) He slammed the not on the counter and staggered out of the bar. It was still light enough for him to navigate the streets and when he got into his apartment he fell face first onto the
couch and passed out.

He was awoken by something wet and slimey on his face. "Get off Petey
get dow- ohhhh shit my head ow ow ow PETEY DOWN! ... Good boy." Matt stood up, but not without tremendous effort. Not used to drinking, though he had plenty of times before. He massaged his
temples and looked down at his dog. Petey was staring up happily and his tail wagged excitedly. "Better call work and te- ohhhh right. Don't have a job." He mumbled something incomprehensible,
something about stealing food ONE TIME and getting fired. Ok twice. Ok ok a lot but still, man’s gotta eat right? He stumbled into the kitchen and clumsily began to make coffee. He sat watching it
drip slowly and rubbing his head. His thoughts were all a jumbled mess. Through the tangle of confusion in his head there was a very vague projection. Something important. It kept coming back. What
was it? He didn't really have anything important in his life. He wasn't really an important person. He lived in a shittyone-bedroom one-bath apartment that was very unkempt. He USED to have
a shitty job that didn't pay very well but it was money nonetheless. He had no girlfriend, although it was only a few short days ago since Carrey had left him. He was madly in love and they had
been together for about four years. He had left home and sixteen to be on his own and escape his shitty life (and live an even shittier one) and met her shortly after. She took his virginity and
they fellin love. After about a year
of living with friends, begging for money and using many different drugs, primarily heroin, one of his uncles he didn't even know had died and he received a small-ish inheritance. Matt and Carrey
got their own place, the one he is standing in right now. But at eighteen he had no knowledge of money. He fell into massive debt and spent much of it on what he called 'Mexican Mud.' His
life went spiraling even further out of control and eventually he had to go to rehab. Keeping him on his feet was what the remainder of the fortune was spent on. At age twenty, he finally fixed
himself. He returned to live with Carrey as a new man, completely clean and ready to tackle reality. Not too long after, Carrey left him saying he was an 'arrogant asshole, low-life scumbag who'd
never accomplished anything and was about as smart as the filth he slept in,' or, slept with, he liked too think. But in reality, Carrey was still hooked on heroin and now that Matt didn't share
this hobby and couldn't supply any she decided that she'd be better off with a man named Chad, who did in fact use and supply Mexican Mud. That was five weeks ago. He fell into a deep dark
depression and sort of gave up. He had no family to go to, he had left them all behind. No friends, since they were all junkies who didn't affiliate with non-junkies, no job, no life, no girl,
nada. Strike three, you're out. Two weeks after a rent-notice came through the mail-slot and Matt realized that he still needed a place to stay, despite the memories that haunted him. So he got a
job at a nearby McDonalds, the employer was inspired by his story. He made a financial risk and bought a dog shortly after. It kept him company and loved him very much. He named it Petey. All was
well until he decided he didn't want to pay to eat so he stole from his workplace ALOT, and was caught on many occasions and eventually fired. Few days later, he woke up from his bed, flipped on
the television and discovered that all of Earth had been abandoned by its human inhabitants. All but him, of course. He missed the curfew. Better luck next time.

Of course! Earth is empty dumbass, how'd you forget that? He poured
himself a cup of coffee and sat down on the couch. Despite the distractions and jumbled thoughts he recalled how he and Carrey used to share this couch and made love on it and watched TV on it and
listen to music on it and would trainspot on it and sometimes all at once. His heart was struck by a sharp pain that felt like a white-hot knife soaked in vinegar. She was a bitch, yes, a junkie,
yes. But he was still in love. Wounds like those never heal, only bury themselves deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper inside your emotions until they reach your core where they
overload and explode into millions of microscopic pieces and those little flakes scatter all through your being so you only feel it in very small ways for different reasons but they still hurt no
matter what the mind or the heart says and they never ever go away and- Matt stopped this thought. He didn't notice he'd been crying. "C'mon you fuckin' pussy she was a whore anyway..." Petey
looked up curious and concerned and he gave a dismissive wave. "I'm ok boy. I'll be ok." He rubbed Petey's head and smiled at him. He felt his heart glow the tiniest bit. He really would be ok.
He'd made it this far, right? He wiped his tears away with his hand and stopped short. On his right-hand wrist he had three years ago gotten a tattoo. It was poorly done by someone
else,

one of his 'friends' who was also on heroin. It was
simple and crude but very meaningful. It had a badly-drawn heart with the initials MD + CG inside of it and scrawled underneath was '4-EVER'. Carrey had gotten a similar one on her left hand at the
same time, but not too long ago Matt saw her on the street being a giganto-whore like she is and instinctively looked for it. Not surprisingly it had already been tattooed over by what looked like
a snake of sorts. Fitting.

He had been avoiding it this whole time but now it
struck him and now he couldn't stop himself. His head fell heavy into his hands and he began to sob. Eventually he fell asleep just like that.

How long he slept he didn't know. His stupid piece-of-shit Casio watch
was busted and was stuck on 4:32. Come to think of it, all the clocks in his house were stuck at that time. At any rate, he didn't even care. Petey had nestled beside him to comfort him at
some point during Matt's breakdown. He woke up himself and yelped. "Hungry, boy?" Another yelp. "Ok, c'mon." He went to the kitchen and poured Petey a bowl of kibble (now once again subconsciously
averting his gaze from the ink on his arm.) He watched Petey eat and began to think. "Wanna go for a walk, boy?" Petey looked up, not amused, and returned to his food. "Ok, get your grub on, then
we'll go."

Outside, the sun was shining bright and the sky was blue and nothing
moved but it was still sinister. He didn't understand why, he didn't much mind being alone in the world, in fact his whole life was pretty much that way. If years of drug-abuse and mental
instability hadn't deteriorated his senses and mind, he would know that the real sinister part was the utter silence. He never in his whole life had experienced it. He was wearing a baggy white
T-shirt with an ancient graphic on it (could've been the Superman logo or some beverage logo, he didn't know, and didn't care,) gray baggy sweatpants and flip-flops. A wind came in and flapped his
clothes around roughly. He looked up at the sky, then down the street, where perfectly still cars sat and seemed to be also looking at the sky and enjoying this nice day and doing nothing
whatsoever. He let out a sigh of content. He was not leaving to drink again, he had something else in mind today. Something he believed would be far more effective in helping him to move on,
as the world had seemed to do only much more dramatically. "Petey!" He called. Petey who had been pissing on a tree trotted up happily. "C'mon boy." It wasn't a long walk, only about fifteen
minutes, normally twenty-five with traffic and pedestrians. Along the way Petey stopped very frequently to sniff everything and once to poop in the grass. Even the dog was put off by the
lack

of human life but it didn't seem to matter much too
him, long as his master was there. Matt observed his surroundings very carefully, not really with concern and not really with admiration. He simply took it all in. Doors were left open, papers and
wrappers and food and drinks and a couple pulled over cabs. It was very clear that everyone had literally vanished in the same instant. All but him. But why? Why? It was dead quiet and Matt could
not seem to shake off that feeling, that sinister undertone. He almost passed his destination. A sub-par apartment building that was even shittier than his own. From that though branched another:
everything here was technically his.

He knew chad, and he knew where he crashed. He'd come on multiple
occasions to hide from police or to get away from a fight he and Carrey were having. Chad was kinda-sorta very much a scumbag. He made a living by selling pot and dragon's blood. He often stole
lied and cheated and was very un-hygenic. But he had heroin so Carrey liked him Matt supposed. Likes? Liked? Past or present? Where is everybody? He wasn't surprised to find that the main door was
locked, but he had done his fair share of breaking-and-entering in his day. He grabbed an old cinder-block and chucked it through a window which once had iron bars but were somehow removed by some
other delinquent he supposed. He climbed in and Petey followed, leaping gracefully over the shards which stuck out from the bottom of the frame. Odd, Petey was pretty old and not that nimble. Oh
well. He was in an apartment. Not Chad's, but it was still probably as crummy. He walked to the door of the place and glanced at the clock in the living-area slash kitchen. 4:32. "Hm." He opened
the door and went down the hall. He reached a staircase and went to the second floor. A door marked 5 was to his left and he approached it. Locked, of course. But that was okay. He had no intention
of being gentle. A wave of rage rushed through him and he smashed his foot easily through the thin wooden door. "FUCK YOU CHAD! FUCK YOU CARREY! TO HELL WITH THE BOTH OF YOU! EAT SHIT! I HATE YOU!
GAAAAH!" Another crash as his foot went through the door again. "FUCKING WHORE! YOU'RE A NO GOOD WHORE AND HE'S A PIECE OF SHIT! HE HAS FUCKING HERPES OR SOMETHING WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? WHY DID
YOU LEAVE ME? I LOVED YOU! ........ I fuckin' loved you..." At this point he slumped against what remained of the door and sat quiet. he stayed like this for some time, then got up again. He did
not cry. He reached his hand through the gaping hole in the door and opened it from the inside. He had half a mind to set the place on fire but he was smart enough to know that was a terrible idea.
He found the bedroom and opened it. On a desk against the back wall he spotted a brown powdery substance and didn't have to be told what it was. A needle sat on a bare mattress next to an empty
plastic baggy. He found a dresser and approached it. Top drawer, Carrey's preference. Some things never change, he thought. Inside was a couple tattered T-shirts, a ripped pair of jeans and a
jean-skirt that looked incredibly filthy. Sitting next to it was a bag of what appeared to be oregano but really wasn't and what was evidently a pipe. He had no desire to use either the powder on
the desk or the substance in the drawer. Those were darker days of his past, although he would gladly accept a cigarette. At any rate his mind was focused on something else. How was we going to
destroy these belongings? Fire? Perhaps ripping them apart by hand? A knife would be fun but not as satisfying. And did he REALLY wanna touch these whore clothes? Then the voice of a ghost filled
his hearing. "Don't go in my drawer, Matt. The top one is mine. Don't look in there, ever." And he never had, because he'd loved her and respected her. But now... What was she hiding anyway? he
rifled around briefly but found nothing. Chad probably wasn't as trustworthy and looked through everything. Maybe she hid it elsewhere. "Watcha think, Petey? ..... Petey?"

"PETEY! PETEY WHERE ARE YOU? C'MERE BOY! PETEY? PEEETTEEEEYY? ohhhh
shit." He bolted out of the building and into the street. He looked both directions but saw nothing. The panic in him was rising at an alarming rate. "PETEY!" A yelp from down the street, seeming
to come from an alley way. He sprinted in the direction of the noise. Another cry and now a voice. The voice of a man. "C'mere doggy! C'mere! I ain't gonna hurt ya, Lucy just needs some lovin'!
It's been awhile, ya know, since Lucy saw any action. Last lady he seen poofed away like money. GONE! In a flash! Funny how that works, eh? Hehe. No woman but I can settle with a doggy, oh yes, a
warm hold will do Lucy nicely, very nicely indeed hehe." Matt saw the source of the voice and a made a sharp right toward it. A scraggly, hairy, ugly man was clutching Petey very tightly in his
arms. He wore nothing but an unbuttoned flannel and a very nice watch. Matt's subconscious recognized that the watch read 4:32, without even having to see it. The man was very filthy and had long
tangled greasy hair and a beard with the same traits. One of his eyes sat perpetually still looking off to the top-right corner of the socket, as if he were trying too look behind him without
turning his head. The other eye was a totally different color and darted around frantically at every instant. Lucy was naked below the waist and clearly had a massive erection. He looked toward,
Matt, then at the dog, then back at Matt. He understood at once and took off running - no - sprinting. Matt called after him ,"HEY GET BACK HERE MOTHERFUCKER! THAT'S MY DOG!" He ran after the man
for about three blocks until he simply fell through the ground.

"What the fuck....? How did- ? What?!" He just fell through the
ground, like there was a hole there. But why would a hole be in the middle of the street? Unless.. "Oh my god of course dumbass the sewers!" He took of toward the manhole. The cover was nowhere to
be found. How Lucy had fallen through the hole so easilywithout getting hurt was beyond Matt. "I'm comin' boy!" He eased
himself down to rungs of the ladder than slid down into the darkness. It was pitch black down there despite the daylight Matt didn't notice or care. He heard sloshing coming from a couple dozen
yards down the tunnel and ran in that direction. "STOP! STOP NOW! GET BACK HERE WITH MY DOG! PLEASE! HE'S ALL I HAVE PLEASE." The strain in his voice was impossible to hide and he was on the verge
of tears. Real terror finally took over and he was ready to give up. He wanted to die. He just wanted it to be over. But he kept running. He realized the sloshing had stopped. The man had come to a
dead end. Matt couldn't see but he charged forward and let out a war-cry. He smacked face first into a wall and fell into the warm sewer-water. Dazed and confused he stared into the darkness. Then
he heard the unmistakable sound of a Zippo lighter and saw a flame. Suddenly a twisted, evil face filled his vision. Matt was frozen with terror. Lucy smiled a terrible evil smile at Matt,
revealing crooked, yellow, blood-caked and jagged teeth. Matt suddenly became aware of a horrible stench. He didn't know it but it was the smell of rotting flesh. "Wakey wakey Matthew. This is your
home now, you'll wanna get used to it. Here have a look." Lucy seemed to do nothing at all but the light of the flame expanded and revealed the entire area. It was a box made out of concrete. It
was about 10x10x10 feet he guessed. The walls were bare. He looked down to findthat the sewer-water was not sewer water at all, but a thick, crimson
liquid. "Ho-holy sh-shit.." Lucy laughed. "Yep. Oh and in case you was wonderin' it's all AB-Positive." He let out a very unpleasant guffaw of laughter. How thatwas funny Matt had no clue. The path from which he had come no longer
existed and he couldn't hear or see Petey anywhere. "Where... is my dog?" Lucy simply grinned his evil grin and pointed up. There were iron bars on the ceiling, and suspended from one was Petey,
hanging by his own entrails. The dog's blood was drippingsteadily, adding to the pool of it he was already swimming in. Matt
could no longer take it. Terror washed over him and conquered him. He screamed a blood-curdling scream and began to sob and yell and beg for it to be all over. Lucy was laughing hysterically all
the while. "Please... stop this... please for God'ssake make it stop just kill me already please oh god please...." Lucy
gave him a look that said: oh you didn't know? Then laughed maniacally again. "No can do my friend. You're stuck here forever, but at least you'll have Petey, right?" More laughter. Matt was
sobbing. "Please just kill me...." Lucylooked at him and frowned, as if he were a concerned parent. "Oh my
dear heart, you're already dead. Matthew Gregory Deckard, welcome to your own personal Hell!" He did not laugh this time but raised his arms and head triumphantly."Hell? Why me? I redeemed myself! NO THIS ISN'T FAIR!" Now there was
no hint of amusement whatsoever in Lucy's voice, only harsh, bitter rage. "NOTHING IS FAIR MATTHEW," he roared, "YOU FUCED UP BIG TIME ASSHOLE. A WHOLE LIFE OF DRUG ABUSE, YOU WERE NOTHING YOU
MISERABLE LITTLE CUNT! YOU DID NOTHING WITHLIFE BECAUSE IT WASN'T FAIR! YOU LEFT YOUR PARENTS AND SCREWED
YOURSELF, SONNY BOY. YOU RUINED ALOTTA LIVES WITH RECKLESS ABANDON AND YOU'RE A SINNER THROUGH AND THROUGH! AND, AND, THE ICING ON THE SHIT-CAKE THAT WAS YOUR LIFE? YOU KILLED YOURSELF! PATHETIC.
YOU JUST GAVE UP. QUIT....... and after all, I feed on allof those things. Yummy yummy in my tum-tum-tummy. You're a waste of a
human soul if you ask me. Goodbye, Matt." Lucy then dropped the zippo into the blood and it went out. Matt heard a very loud crack and Lucy's body slumped down and splashed into the liquid. He'd
snapped his own neck.

Matthew had all of eternity ahead of him. He never aged. He never got
used to the stench of rotting decaying flesh and the blood maintained its lividity perpetually. It was pitch black, nothing could be seen at all in the room. Petey's blood never ever stopped
dripping and Lucy's body never decayed. At timesthe corpse would awaken. It wasn't Lucy but a sentient being indeed.
Matt could never see it of course but when it became animated it would speak with Carrey's voice and thrash around as if it were having a seizure. He never knew what the voice said but he used to.
Now the voice said only one thing that Matt understoodbut didn't know why it was important. Sometimes it would just say it
over and over and over for years and years and years. He tried to detach the jawbone to make it stop, ripped out its tongue and even its vocal cords but the voice came through clearly every time
anyways. The steady pitter-patter of his last companion'sblood, the pitch black, the infinity of time was his torture. He never
aged, he was always starving and parched but could never die. He could feel pain but he could not kill himself. Many many times he had tried to smash his head against the concrete chamber in an
effort to kill himself. It never worked. He felt andunimaginable fatigue but sleep was literally impossible. He wished he
would go mad but the evil magic in the chamber prevented such. His mind remained the same. He would go on fully aware of his fate for eternity. The voice will continue it's chant. "Four thirty two,
four thirty two, four thirty two, four thirty two....."He was in Hell.

A gun. Carrey hid a gun in her top drawer. She never knew why, but she
always felt the need to hide it from him. He loved him, but for all the wrong reasons. He had always been there but so had many many other men. The difference was, Matthew always had heroin.
Always. If not that then booze or pot or sometimesAcid and a few times coke. Enough time with a person can do one of two
things, bring them together or tear them apart. Heroin prevented any sort of logical thought or emotion, just happiness. Being around Matthew most of the time and being high and happy led her to
love him, but again, in all the wrong ways. Sex wasalso a big contributing factor. So it was. But Matt had to change.
It's just how his life ended up. He wanted it and worked for it and achieved it. But Carrey was afraid of change. Drugs blocked out reality and that's all she wanted. Matthew came back and he
resented drugs. He tried to get Carrey to change too. To stop usingand join him to better themselves. Carrey wouldn't. Couldn't. It was
wrong and awful and she knew it but it was only real love to him and it didn't really hurt her to leave. You don't feel regret or pain when you shoot up. Just feel good. She would be fine and she
wouldn't worry about Matt or care. And she didn't. She sits in thecorner of a dirty room on the floor, needle in her left hand and her
right arm has a band around it. She is alone and horny. Since Chad had left her for another, she is on her own for now. She begins to remember her past sex life with longing. How easy it was, how
readily available, what a great escape it is, and oh how she misses it.Of course Matt comes to her mind. He was her first and only for a very
long time. Memories of him are hazy and vague. What ever happened to him? She sits and begins to remember. The last fight they had. Matthew had come back from rehab 2 weeks ago on this day. They
yell and scream. Matt wants her to change, to stop using, he loves her.She wants to get out, she won't stop, not ever, but does not say it
aloud. She finds another way out, fabricates some lies and false feelings. They come easily. She'd been prepared. He is an asshole, an arrogant one, a lowlife, a scum bag, accomplished nothing, and
she deserved better. None of these are true and she knows it, but she doesn't care.The words come out and she storms out of the apartment, she is leaving
for good she says, forever, goodbye. She goes to Chad for sex and mud. She does not return home until hours later, to gather her things. As she is unlocking the door, she hears a loud bang inside.
She flies in.On the couch lies what's
left of Matt. His brains are spattered all across the wall behind him and next to him lies a colt .45 that looks very familiar. The barrell is smoking and the smell of gunpowder is in the air.
That's all she remembers, her head is blocking out the rest of thought and the heroin is doing its work. She only remembers looking atthe clock on the stove and for some reason the detail is very
important. It reads 4:32. Carrey is drifting, drifting, away from reality. Too far, too fast. Too much mud in her veins now. The end of her life approaches. Her eyelids grow heavy and her thoughts
cease and she slips away. But before falling into oblivion she catches a glimpse of her lastsight. The clock on the wall. Funny, she thinks. It's
4:32.